


Blood of the Father

by headlesshorsepossum



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternative Universe - FBI, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Cults, Found Family, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Legal Drama, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Brainwashing, Past Drug Use, Rape Recovery, Rescue, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Whump, but like.... a lot of angst first
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:55:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24460054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/headlesshorsepossum/pseuds/headlesshorsepossum
Summary: It sort of seems like breaking up a death cult should be the happy ending instead of the terrible beginning, but of course that isn't how it works. Two FBI Agents try to keep their key witness alive. The former cult leader is trying to get him killed... and it turns out he'll have to get in line.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	1. Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> HEY SO. This is an au of a story i'm working on that I want to Actually Finish And Do Something With. The original story is about vampires, and this started out as, just, 'hey, what would this look like in a world where vampires aren't actually real?' mixed with watching a lot of like... thrillers, I guess.
> 
> A lot of this takes place in the hospital so watch out for medical triggers. This is a story about Love and Found Family, but also about trauma recovery, and the messiness that comes along with that, so please mind the tags, and i'll add specific warnings in the notes before each chapter.
> 
> This is being crossposted from my tumblr, thewhumperinwhite. Head over there to find extras, including art of all the characters. Cheers!
> 
> Oh also, as always, I care about Love, not about medical best practices or How The FBI Works, so please forgive whatever inaccuracies are involved with that stuff.

Inside, the warehouse is not open like he had expected; the front hallway is dark and close and snakes off into the darkness in opposite directions.

“Left or right?” Rona hisses, pointing her gun down the right hallway.

“I’ll take left.” She salutes him half-mockingly with the hand holding the gun, which is a stupid fucking thing to do, but he’s too pumped up with adrenaline to focus on scolding her. “Meet me back here in fifteen minutes and don’t engage if you can help it. I don’t like this.”

Rona scoffs a little, and takes off running before he can yell at her. He growls and starts down the hall, concentrating on staying as light-footed as possible.

He tries two doors and finds them empty and also–-baffling. The hallway is dank and dirty, but each room is sparse but elegantly furnished, sparklingly clean, and filled with candles.

The room at the end of the hall is bigger than the others, with a huge black-draped bed and a marble tile floor, and he thinks it’s empty too until he sees the still pale shape against the far wall.

There’s a teenage boy shackled to the wall across the room. His arms are bound above his head and his face is a mess of bruises and blood. There’s a thick leather collar around his throat but other than that he’s naked.

“Jesus Christ,” Simon chokes, shoving his gun back in its holster and stumbling forward.

The boy doesn’t move when Simon kneels in front of him, but when Simon reaches out a shaking hand to look for a pulse his head jerks back and then he folds in on himself, raising his knees to his chest and lowering his head as much as he can–Simon sees that the collar around his neck is attached to a heavy chain, though it currently hangs slack halfway down his bare back before leading up to a hook on the wall above him. His throat is a mess of bruises and cuts.

He tries to say something through his ruined and bloody lips, but it comes out as mush, and Simon realizes with a sick jolt that he’s crying, his eyes half-shut and glued to the blood-caked marble floor.

“Shh, kid, it’s okay, I swear it’s okay,” Simon says, and the boy stiffens immediately at the sound of his voice. “Listen, I’m an FBI agent, I’m gonna get you out of here. Can you walk?”

The boy looks up jerkily, but his left eye is swollen shut and his right so glassy Simon doesn’t think he can see through it. He’s shaking.

“Can you understand me,” Simon says, trying to keep his voice steady. The lower half of the kid’s face is torn open like he’s been punched in the mouth more times than Simon wants to think about, with fucking knuckle-dusters or something. He tries to say something again but it comes out as almost a gurgle, and Simon forces down a wave of panic because him losing his shit now is exactly the last thing this kid needs.

“Okay,” he says, and he tries to sound gentle but he knows he’s speaking low and fast and the kid is still shuddering and breathing in harsh gasps. “Okay, I’m gonna get you out of here, we’re gonna get you all taken care of, you just stay with me and don’t pass out, aright?” He looks up at the manacles around the kid’s wrists, thick metal and caked with blood, a lot of it dry but a lot of it still dripping wet; the skin of the kid’s upper arms is torn open from struggling, hard, for a long time. Simon’s panic kicks up a notch under the mental barrier he’s hastily thrown up around it. How long has the kid been here? He’s too thin, Simon thinks, but so bloody and beaten Simon can’t tell much else for sure. There seem to be bruises and cuts over every inch of him-–the boy makes a faint noise that’s almost a whimper and curls in on himself like he can feel Simon’s eyes on him, and Simon feels a rush of sick shame, feels dirty and shaken. He snaps his eyes back onto the boy’s bloody wrists.

The manacles are thick, too thick for him to break safely, not without tools, but they’re held to the wall by a clip with a simple release and Simon opens it with shaky hands and pulls the boy’s arms free of the wall gently–-but the boy reflexively tries to yank his arms down and then makes a horrible wet sob of pain and Simon has to catch him before he collapses over sideways.

“Shit, okay, don’t rush it, I think your shoulder is dislocated,” Simon blurts, and the boy curls in on himself, making a low harsh noise in the back of his swollen throat, his head falling on Simon’s chest. Simon freezes for a second and then forces himself to stay in his skin and yanks his suit jacket off to drape it around the boy’s shoulders. The boy’s working eye goes even wider and fills with tears in earnest; if anything, he’s shaking worse now.

“Can you walk?” Simon says urgently, keeping a hand on the shoulder he thinks is doing okay and trying to maintain eye contact, though he’s still not sure how much the boy is seeing.

The boy’s wide glassy eye clears a tiny bit and he tries to speak again, but all that really happens is more blood dribbles down his chin. Shaking like he’s about to fall apart, he shakes his head and chokes out, “M–muh—mmm—” Simon can see him slipping back into complete panic and he shakes his head quickly.

“You’re okay, it’s okay, I get it, don’t try to talk. Kid.” He looks the kid in the eye, and tightens his hand just a little on his shoulder until the kid looks back. “Will you let me carry you? I want to get you out of here but I’m not going to touch you in any way you don’t want me to, do you understand?”

For a second the boy just stares at him, bloody lips parted, and Simon thinks he’s going to have to grab him without his explicit consent and he really, _really_ doesn’t want to do that-–and then the boy reaches out to grab at Simon shirt front with his bound hands, almost sobbing.

“Please–” he chokes out, “Please, _please.”_

“Okay, thank you so much,” Simon says, trying again to be soothing but realizing that there’s no way he can do this without having to put his hands on this boy in places that are going to make them both miserable. “I don’t want to hurt you, but we have to get out of here now, do you understand? Can you help me out?” The boy nods desperately. “I’m going to move you, and I think it’s going to hurt, but I need you to be as quiet as you can, even though it’ll be hard, can you do that?”

The boy nods, and clutches hard at Simon’s shirt, all his muscles visibly taut in expectation of the pain Simon knows he’s going to cause whether he wants to or not. Simon takes a deep breath, holsters his gun-–he feels naked without it, and then realizes that he’s probably never _really_ felt naked in his whole life–-and scoops the boy up as carefully as he can.

The boy doesn’t make a sound, but his hands tighten convulsively on Simon’s already-bloody shirt and any slight color that might have been in his face immediately leaves it; he’s shaking hard.

Simon loops an arm around the boy’s back, wincing at the sharpness of his spine, and the other arm around his hips, and he knows that’s the worst; he can feel the blood soaking through the jacket draped over the boy and knows he’s been hurt in places Simon doesn’t want to think about, badly. The boy’s hips are already too bony because he’s visibly starving but one of them is too sharp and jagged and feels out of place; it’s either broken or dislocated and Simon can’t not jostle it.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly as he gets to his feet, and the boy doesn’t respond, just lets himself be lifted, holding onto Simon’s shirtfront like it’s a lifeline, which it kind of is. His good eye is clenched shut and his face is contorted in pain, but he still isn’t making a sound.

Action heroes always know how to relocate limbs, Simon thinks desperately, but in real life they only teach you how to kill people. The boy weighs less than Simon’s gym bag does, almost less than his gun, and moving fast is the only help he can offer right now.

Rona buzzes in his ear, and Simon jumps slightly, having forgotten she existed for a second. The boy goes stiff as a board at the sudden noise; Rona has never had a comforting voice, even divorced from radio static, and it’s probably loud enough for the boy to hear but not understand.

“Got the girls; they’ve got a key to the brother’s room somehow. Haven’t seen the leader, can’t guarantee he won’t be in there. They think the brother’s life might be in danger. What’s your status?”

Simon swears. “Rona, you need backup. There’s a kid in here; he’s in bad shape. I’ve gotta get him out, now.”

“They didn’t say anything about any kid,” Rona says, sounding alarmed, and Simon hears her relaying the information to the girls who’ve been in contact with the bureau, though he can’t hear their response. It kind of doesn’t matter. Simon lowers his head and half-jogs back to the door of the room, careful to look up and down the hallway before he ducks into it; no sign of anybody, they must all be where Rona is. 

“What’s he look like,” Rona says sharply in his ear.

 _“He looks like he’s dying,”_ Simon hisses back, “what the fuck do you want me to say?”

Rona says something in reply, something about the girls thinking he was dead, but Simon doesn’t hear it because the boy is clutching at his shirt again, his good eye slightly clearer than before, and trying to speak. Simon leans in to hear him; his voice is still garbled with blood.

“Did you find Karim?” the boy says, Simon’s pretty sure; he sounds younger than he did before, less pained and more scared. “Tell him--tell him Micah didn’t-–kill me,” he rasps, and Simon can see the effort draining what little energy–-possibly what little _life_ –-he has left. There’s still blood coming out of his mouth.

Simon didn’t get a good sense of the names involved; he’s trying to remember if Karim was the name of the brother and that’s why he passes the doorway without looking and something hits him in the face like it wants to cave his head in.

Simon falls against the wall hard, just able to keep his feet by bracing himself with his arm; he hears a strangled scream that’s probably the boy hitting the floor broken hip first and because he’s an idiot he scrambles for his gun before he can see and the thing that hit him hits his arm next, hard; Simon doesn’t think it breaks but it goes entirely numb and when he stumbles and gasps the gun disappears easily from his hand. When his vision clears the first thing he sees is the muzzle of his gun, pointing at his forehead.

Behind the gun is a giant, pale-faced and white haired, easily a half-foot taller than Simon's six feet. He’s wearing a crisp suit and his shoulders are cartoonishly broad. He keeps the gun trained on Simon and while he’s regarding Simon with nothing but blank curiosity he reaches down without looking and takes the chain attached to the boy’s collar and hauls him up to his knees, lifting his weight with easy cruelty.

The boy follows the collar upright, since he has no choice, clutching at it with his bound hands, just barely able to hook his fingers over the leather; Simon can hear his breath coming in harsh gasps and he jerks forward without thinking, and the big man very calmly pushes the gun forward into Simon’s chest; Simon forces himself still, staring up at him. The man is half-kneeling, and Simon is half-collapsed against the wall; the man is holding the chain just high enough that the boy cannot rest on his knees, and Simon knows the boy can barely breathe.

“Who are you?” the man says, sounding only mildly curious.

Simon blinks blood from his eye. He had been assuming the man had hit him with a crowbar or something, but in the absence of a visible weapon other than Simon’s own gun, Simon realizes it might have just been his fist.

“Put him down and we’ll talk about it,” Simon says, his heart thudding against the muzzle of his gun. 

The man eyes Simon speculatively, and then he drops the chain without warning and the boy falls to the floor in front of Simon, gasping; his head is almost touching Simon’s knee, and he immediately tries to push himself up onto his hands; Simon can see blood splattering on the floor when he coughs.

“Don’t move,” the big man says, directed down at the boy, who goes still, not looking at either the man or at Simon. “Did you call this man? How?”

The boy doesn’t look up; he coughs again, either because he’s trying to answer or just because his throat must be an utter ruin by now.

“Listen to me,” Simon says, trying to keep his voice flat and not move suddenly. “I’m with the FBI. We have backup coming automatically if we don’t check in every fifteen minutes. You don’t want to shoot me.”

“Fifteen minutes is a long time,” the man says, not moving the gun from where it sits against Simon’s heart. “Little boy,” he says, still making eye contact with Simon, “do you know why he's here?”

The boy lifts himself off the ground with his bound arms, on one elbow to keep weight off his dislocated shoulder. He doesn’t seem to be able to speak–-blood is pouring from his ruined lips-–but he manages to shake his head slightly.

The big man looks down at the boy, and sighs slightly. “I told Trent not to keep you. Knew you’d bring trouble.”

Trembling with the effort of holding himself up, the boy lifts his head to look up at the man. Simon starts slightly at the sight of his face, ruined lips twisted in hatred; it’s more lucid than he has been so far.

“Shithead,” he snarls around a mouthful of blood, “like you didn’t like fucking me as much as he did.”

The big man doesn’t look offended; his face doesn’t change when he raises his fist–-Simon swears and jerks forward but not nearly fast enough–-and slams it down into the boy’s temple like a hammer. 

The boy goes completely limp, on the floor in front of Simon, blood still pouring from his mouth. The man looks down at the boy for a moment, and then raises his hand again.

Simon can’t help lunging forward to catch his arm. “Bastard, _don’t–”_

Simon doesn’t really hear the shot; there isn’t enough break after the muzzle flash and then the pain tears the world apart; he rocks back against the wall, clutching at his shoulder as blood spurts from it.

The man is halfway to his feet by the time Simon can see again, the gun level with Simon’s head. He looks very mildly irritated.

“Dunno what’s going on,” the big man says, cocking the gun again. “I’ll figure it out without-–”

The big man’s head explodes.

When he hits the floor Simon can see the end of the hallway behind him, and there’s Rona, standing with a pale woman with red hair and a look of controlled nausea on her face. Rona keeps her gun trained on the big man even though he is very clearly dead; the redhead half-runs forward without glancing at him.

“It _is_ him,” she says, alarmed, and reaches down toward the boy’s limp body. Simon knocks her hand out of the way, hard, trying to shield the boy with his body and aware mostly all he’s doing is dripping even more blood on him. Simon’s jacket fell from the boy’s shoulders when he first dropped him; he gropes for it and covers him again. 

“Who the hell are you?” Simon growls, wanting to wrap himself around the boy but not wanting to jostle him. The woman looks at him, like an animal about to flee.

“That’s Venita Bones, Blake,” Rona says, coming to stand beside the woman. “She knows who he is.”

Venita is looking down at the boy, like she’s vaguely sick. She shakes her head. “I don’t, really. His name’s Art. Karim loves him. That’s all I know. We thought Father-–” Her face twists. _“Micah._ We thought Micah killed him.”

“He did his best,” Simon spits, and glares at Rona. “Where’s the goddamn paramedics?”

“They’re on their way,” Rona says, lowering her gun. “I called in the S.W.A.T. guys when it sounded like you weren’t coming. They hauled Micah Trent out already.”

“Did you find the other kids?” Simon says reluctantly, easing the boy up off the floor. He’s limp as a ragdoll, but there aren’t any obvious big wounds to put pressure on, just probably weeks of torture and starvation; the paramedics need to get here _now._

Rona nods stiffly. “They’re headed to the station. Karim Mun’s already with the medics; starved himself half to death. Charity Bridges is dead.”

Simon looks up at that. “Trent killed her?”

Rona’s face twitches slightly. Venita Bones is the one who answers, quietly.

“Yes,” she says. “He pulled her in front of him. She loved him the most, so she let him.”

Rona glares at the ground briefly. Simon doesn’t ask what Trent pulled Charity in front of. He gathers the boy into his arms instead and then squares his shoulders to face the task of standing. Rona snorts.

“You’re shot, idiot,” she tells him gruffly, and reaches forward to take the boy from him. Simon doesn’t particularly want to let go–-the boy said he could touch him; Rona didn’t ask-–but his shoulder is screaming and he doesn’t really have a choice. Rona’s smaller than Simon is but the boy weighs about ten pounds and his weight isn’t a problem, and to her credit he can see that she’s holding him carefully, though her face hasn’t changed. “Get up, we’re getting you both in an ambulance.”

Simon stumbles out into the air behind Rona and Venita Bones; the sun finished going down while he was in that fucking crypt and he takes a second to breathe in the night air before he wades toward the ambulance behind Rona.

There’s four ambulances gathered, which is lucky; Micah Trent isn’t anywhere to be seen, apparently already carted away, but there are plenty of uniformed officers. Simon knows immediately which members of the small crowd are Coven members; they’re all dressed preposterously, and they’re all very attractive, which he guesses is what someone like Micah Trent looks for in a sex-cult member. An old-fashioned blonde bombshell and a pretty girl with ludicrous curly pigtails are seated inside the open door of a big S.W.A.T. vehicle, the pigtail girl with a tinfoil blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and they stand when they see Venita coming; she wades through the officers in their direction. The ambulance nearest the S.W.A.T. vehicle is open, and there’s a boy inside who is very obviously the pigtail girl’s brother; they must be Karim and Selina Mun. He’s hooked up to an I.V. drip already, sitting on the stretcher inside the ambulance, face hollow-cheeked and drawn, but when he looks in their direction he goes white and jerks to his feet, though he immediately stumbles.

 _“Art,”_ he says, his voice wild, and the paramedic who hooked him up has to grab him by the shoulders to keep him from leaping out of the van, tubes in his arm or no. He locks eyes with Rona, frantic. _“Is he alive?”_

Rona doesn’t answer, just hops up into the second ambulance with the boy in her arms, already issuing orders to the paramedics inside despite them definitely knowing more about saving lives than she does. Simon lets the medics come to him, staring up at Karim, trying to read his distress. It looks genuine enough, but that doesn’t mean anything about how much of this is his fault.

“Did you bring him here?” Simon says as the paramedics peel his hand and then his shirt away from the wound in his shoulder, and Karim Mun jerks back like Simon’s hit him.

“Please save him,” Karim Mun says, before the paramedics glare at Simon and close the ambulance, and it looks like that’s all he’s going to get.


	2. Interrogation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon Blake Has Some Questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for: panic attack, vomiting, referenced noncon, stitches

Thankfully, Simon’s shoulder is about as minor as gunshot wounds get. 

The gun is high enough caliber that while the hole is fairly large and the bone isn’t in great shape, the bullet was never in there festering, so they sew him closed and tie it in a sling with stern instructions not to move it, and they let him wander around within twenty-four hours of his arrival at the hospital, with instructions not to leave or fall asleep without permission, since the man he now knows was Tenor Bradshaw apparently had fists made of granite. He gets debriefed by more than one Bureau official, though Farah is notably absent, which is a bit of a relief, to be honest. He kind of can’t imagine what she’s feeling right now. He also talks to the local chief of police, after getting clearance from the Bureau, since the murders took place in his city. He does not answer the many requests for interviews, though the Bureau invites him to come stand at the press conference. The outreach officer who asks him is visibly disappointed; he knows they’ll ask Rona next and he guesses she might even say yes, but he knows his sling would make him good press. He doesn’t have the stomach for it at the moment.

Instead he finds the reception desk and asks for Heinrich Arthur Lange’s room.

He knows the kid’s name now; it was the first thing he asked when he woke up. He also knows that he’s the surviving son of Senator Heinrich Lange Senior and the solution to a missing persons case that hadn’t been his division, obviously; apparently the kid disappeared from the Senator’s secure townhouse three weeks ago, which is a hell of a long time to be chained to a wall, and an unthinkably long time to be alone with at least two violent rapists.

Simon doesn’t look at his chart, because he already knows more than he wants to. He asks the doctor about the prognosis, and it’s about what he expected, though to be honest he’s surprised the boy’s heart is still beating: in addition to all the injuries Simon could see and feel, the kid lost a dangerous percentage of his blood volume, triggering a stroke. Parts of his brain look wonky on scans, probably were even before Tenor Bradshaw hit him with a fist like a freight-train, but there’s no way to know the extent of the damage until and unless he wakes up and tries to talk. The doctor calls his survival to this point a miracle, but Simon remembers how he looked at Tenor Bradshaw and thinks god had very little to do with it; that skinny kid just has a spine of steel.

He’s deeply unconscious when Simon goes in to see him, and presumably will be for a while. His shoulder and hip needed to be reset; the hip was broken and had started to heal badly, and Simon thinks they had to rebreak it, though he was thankfully out at the time. Some of the cuts on his mouth had needed stitches, and he was probably already concussed when Simon found him, before Tenor’s punch fractured his skull. There are bandages wrapped firmly around his head, and they’ve bandaged his swollen eye over, something about broken blood vessels. The doctor almost straight-up didn’t believe Simon when he told him the boy had been awake and talking, though Simon had told him he could see how much it took out of him. The doctor just shook his head and said he hoped it hadn’t worsened his condition too much, which made Simon feel like scum even though he doesn’t really think there’s anything he could have done differently.

Simon knows the Coven members have given statements, including Karim Mun, who seems to have spent the most time with the kid. Simon has pointedly not asked about them, though he did hear that Mun had asked if he could see him, which made his vision go red for a while until he did some very regulated breathing. In the Coven members’ defense, they all agree that they thought he was dead for at least the last two days he was held in Micah Trent’s torture room, and DNA tests seem to show that only Trent and Tenor Bradshaw actually raped him, though given that most of the other Coven members are women, Simon isn’t sure how much that’s actually worth.

Simon flops into one of the chairs around the kid’s bed, scrubbing a hand over his face. It’s all so fucking awful; thinking about it makes his head hurt worse than it already does.

He looks up too fast when he hears the door open, and Farah is already in the room by the time the stars clear from his vision. He starts to leap to his feet, but she holds out a hand to stop him.

“Don’t hurt yourself, Agent Blake,” Farah says, and her voice sounds different than usual, almost gentle. Simon sinks back down, his body grateful even though it feels disrespectful.

“Did you get to...” He isn’t sure how to ask. “Farah… is it them?”

Farah isn’t looking at him, though she nods in response to his question; she moves forward to take the seat at the head of Heinrich Arthur Lange’s bed.

“It’s them,” she says softly.

“Jesus,” Simon says. He has no idea how she’s feeling, whether to be happy or horrified for her. “Farah, I’m–-I don’t know what to say.”

Farah looks at him then, and she smiles, though it looks a bit-–baffled. “My children are alive, Agent Blake,” she says. “There’s a lot more–-a lot that needs working out, between the three of us and the court system, too, I guess, but that’s the biggest part. He didn’t kill them.”

Simon twitches slightly. He doesn’t say what he’s thinking, which is that Trent did something much worse and made them monsters instead. It’s not his place. Holding it in is kind of hard work, though.

Farah smiles, like she knows what he’s thinking and it doesn’t hurt her. She looks back down at what’s left of Arthur Lange. “You found him, huh?” she says in Simon’s direction.

Simon swallows hard. “Yeah.” He doesn’t really want to talk about this, not with Farah, but he doesn’t quite catch himself before he blurts out, “He mentioned him. Karim.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Your son, I mean.”

Farah looks at him, a tad sharply. “What did he say?”

 _He said it with his mouth full of blood, and it almost tore him apart,_ Simon doesn’t say. “I didn’t really understand. He asked if we’d found him. He said–-to tell Karim that Micah hadn’t killed him.” Simon feels his face twitch, but isn’t sure what he’s feeling exactly. “I don’t know why.”

Farah nods slowly, and looks down at Arthur Lange, who is nineteen and may never wake up. “I see,” she says.

Simon wants to hold it in, because none of this is Farah’s fault, and it must hurt her more than it hurts him, but he doesn’t make it. “Farah,” he says. “Did Karim Mun–-Did Karim do this?” Farah looks confused, and Simon waves his good arm jerkily. “I know Micah Trent did it. I’m asking-–if Karim brought him in. If he _let_ him. If he–- _gave_ this kid to Micah Trent.”

Farah looks at him, and she doesn’t really look angry, thank god, though he can’t read her face beyond that.

“My son was missing for almost ten years,” Farah says, and Simon winces, because yeah, that’s what he’s been trying not to let himself forget. Farah waves his chagrin away. “What I’m saying is, I don’t know who he’s become in that time.” She pauses to catch her breath; that’s not a sentence anybody can say without pain, even Special Agent-In-Charge Farah Mun. “I do know he wasn’t a particularly good liar before, and that his story seems to match up with the others’. But I only have their word at this point, and I’m not promising you it’s the truth.” She looks at Simon, maybe to see if he accepts her premise, and he nods warily. “He says he didn’t.”

Simon’s lip curls before he can help it, even though he asked. “Of course he does.”

Farah sighs, and rubs one of her eyes; Simon starts, it’s such a weirdly human gesture, like she’s acknowledging that even she can’t help but be exhausted by this. “I know there’s no reason for you to believe I can be objective about this,” she says tiredly. “I’m still his mother, death-cult member or no. But for whatever it’s worth-–” She lowers her hand and makes eye contact with Simon, like she’s making sure he remembers who she is, and to be honest, it means more than he feels like it should. “I believe him, for now.”

Simon looks down at Arthur Lange to get out of looking at her face, and it’s a mistake. He’s nineteen, and Simon’s had so much of his blood on his shirt. He feels exhausted suddenly, like he’s just now remembering that it doesn’t really matter either way; knowing whether Karim Mun is or isn’t a monster won’t make this kid wake up without brain damage.

“I hope you’re right,” Simon says, and it’s true, and not just for Farah’s sake. The kid hadn’t asked about Karim Mun like he hated him.

“So do I,” Farah says, and she reaches out to touch Arthur Lange’s hand, the one that isn’t wrapped up in a sling to avoid strain on his shoulder, but is studded with a stomach-turning number of needles and tubes. “If Karim’s lying, he’s a better liar and a worse man than any I’ve ever met.”

Simon looks at her face when she says that, and sort of wishes he hadn’t; she looks for a second a little like a mother whose missing children are probably going to be tried for murder.

“Farah,” Simon says, and isn’t sure what to say after that. He’s grateful when she sighs and gets briskly to her feet.

“I have a small mountain of paperwork to fill out, in addition to the number of different kinds of therapists I have to find,” she says, and yeah, he doesn’t envy her that part. “If he wakes before I’m back, tell him-–” She glances down at the bruised body in the bed, and laughs, a little hysterically. “I have no idea what you should tell him, actually. Do your best.” She gives him a half-salute, and walks out.

Simon watches her go, and then he squares his shoulders, and takes his time getting to his feet. He knows where to go next.

\----

There’s a guard posted at the door of Karim Mun’s hospital room, but he isn’t handcuffed to the bed, which seems highly premature to Simon, but he guesses it isn’t his decision, and he hasn’t heard anything about any of the Coven members trying to escape, and maybe it isn’t worth it just for the principle of the thing. Simon tries not to let it bias him. It doesn’t feel like it’s working.

Karim Mun is twenty-four; Micah Trent took him when he was fifteen and his father was dying of prostate cancer. Simon knows all this from Farah, and knows that it should impact the way he feels right now more than it is, but all he can think about is that Karim Mun is right now working his way through a bowl of scrambled eggs, while Arthur Lange might never be able to eat on his own again. It’s an easy thought to get distracted by.

Karim turns to look at him when he enters the room. His hair is bleach-blonde, cut in a way that is probably highly fashionable when styled but is now a mess of curls hanging in his face; he has the slightly shrunken look of someone who has lost a great deal of weight in a very short amount of time, hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. 

“I thought I’d answered all your questions,” he says in a slightly scratchy voice, sounding not resentful so much as tired. He blinks at the look on Simon’s face, a little guarded. Simon has no idea what that look might be; he’s trying hard to keep his face neutral.

Simon sits down next to Karim Mun’s bed, to give himself time to take a few surreptitious deep breaths. Then he makes firm eye contact, which Karim accepts, looking a bit wary. His eyes are a pale greenish-blue, striking against his brown skin; probably he’s very handsome when he’s less exhausted. Simon tries not to let this make him angrier.

“You’re Karim Mun,” Simon says, even though he already knows that. Karim nods once, waiting. “I’m Agent Simon Blake. I found Heinrich Lange in your little compound.”

All the blood visibly leaves Karim’s face. If the eggs weren’t already resting on his tray table, he’d certainly drop them; his fork clatters loudly to the floor as it is. He stares at Simon, face almost green, but doesn’t say anything.

“He asked about you,” Simon says finally, and Karim sits bolt upright so fast he does upend the tray table, eggs flying everywhere; Simon can see his heart rate skyrocket and sighs, not wanting to be interrupted by orderlies.

“Is he awake?” Karim demands, and Simon waves at him dismissively.

“No. They don’t know if he’s going to. Sit down.”

The life drains back out of Karim’s face immediately and he flops back down against the pillows, looking weaker than he did when Simon entered. Simon frowns at him, not sure how to feel.

“He asked if we’d found you,” he says, and Karim closes his eyes. “He told me to tell you that Micah Trent didn’t kill him. I guess you know that by now.”

Karim lets out a shuddering breath and scrubs at his eyes with tube-studded hands. 

“I didn’t know,” he says very quietly. “I thought–- saw them bleed him. I saw his eyes go dead. I thought he was gone.”

He looks at Simon, his hands tightening into fists on his blankets. His eyes are suspiciously shiny.

“I wouldn’t have left him with them if I’d known he was alive. I’d have taken that stupid key from Diana or torn the hinges off the door or something. I’d have died before I left him there. You have to believe that.”

Simon feels his face twist at that last part. “I don’t have to believe anything,” he snaps. Simon realizes that Karim Mun is crying, and he’s suddenly so angry he can’t think; he can feel his hands shaking. “I don’t have to believe anything except that I found that kid with his arm pulled out of its socket and blood coming out of his ass, and all I want to know is if _you put him there.”_

Simon knows that it’s wrong the second he says it.

He’s never seen a look like that on someone’s face before. Karim stares at Simon like he’s put a fist through his ribcage, and then he hunches forward and throws up all over himself.

“Oh, fuck,” Simon says, catching Karim Mun’s shoulder to keep him from toppling right over out of the bed, and turns to call to the guard at the door that he needs a nurse, now. Karim’s heart is going faster than Simon’s ever heard one, and Simon can hear his breath tearing in and out of his lungs like the air is serrated. “Jesus Christ, kid, don’t, I’m sorry,” he says, and he means it; he’s actually maybe never been this sorry before in his life. Karim convulses again, bile pouring up out of his throat and onto his lap. “Karim, listen to me-–he knew.”

Karim freezes, eyes wide but seeing nothing.

“He told me to tell you he was alive. He knew you didn’t know. He didn’t think you’d left him.”

Karim looks at Simon, still coughing up stomach acid, like he’s thrown him a lifeline-–like he isn’t the one who shoved him in the water in the first place.

 _“What do you think you’re doing?”_ the nurse bawls at him when she bursts into the room, and it’s a very reasonable question.

“I fucked him up,” Simon says, scrambling out of her way. “I think he’s having a panic attack.”

The nurse pushes past him, supporting Karim’s back. “Put your head between your knees, hon,” she tells him, and as he’s doing so she shoots Simon the most disgusted look he’s ever received; it physically rocks him back onto his heels. “Get out,” she bites out, and Simon is more than happy to follow that order.


	3. Awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon's partner surveys the damage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I’m apparently not gonna get any writing done today, and I’m impatient to share my best girl Rona with y’all anyway, so 🤷
> 
>  **TW for:** explicit and frank reference to rape/noncon, Cops, needles and tubes and various other Hospital Things

Rona Cowl has already interviewed Karim Mun, along with the rest of the Coven members, as the highest ranking member of the task force not currently recovering from a gunshot wound. She’s passed the information on, and formed her own opinions of them, though her assessment of who they are as people doesn't have any bearing on the case, obviously. She thinks Venita Bones and Selina Mun will probably be fine if they can age down and up respectively in therapy; she thinks Diana Farrow is a sociopath but will probably be a harmless one if given the opportunity; and she thinks Karim Mun is too shattered to form much of an opinion about at the moment. She does think his obvious grief is probably genuine; it’s too embarrassing to fake, really.

She’s been in to see Simon, obviously, but not for long, too busy with paperwork and trying to interview Micah Trent without getting tearing her hair out, and now she regrets that; she’d known he was fucked up by the whole thing, but after three years of working with him on and off she’d assumed he had his shit together enough not to do anything stupid, and apparently she was wrong. Before she gets too annoyed she reminds herself that Heinrich Arthur Lange is essentially the first sexual assault victim he’s dealt with firsthand, or at the very least his first male one, and guys can get weird about that kind of thing. 

Also, it could be worse: he didn't _hit_ Karim Mun, and Mun doesn’t seem to be making too big of a fuss over it, against all fucking odds. She knows Simon’s getting his head bitten off by their superiors right now, though she isn’t really sure what to do about it; generally her response would be to buy him a beer or five and not address it explicitly one way or the other, but he’s still on watch after getting punched out by a behemoth and also she very much doesn’t want to be present when and if Farah has anything to say to him.

She hasn’t actually been in to see Lange yet. There doesn’t seem to be much point, considering she never saw him awake and she doesn’t really believe that people in comas can hear what you say to them. But there’s a part of her that’s always interested to see how much stuff she can see–-how thick her protective covering is, if anything can get through it and make her feel sick. So she ducks her head into his hospital room while Simon is busy getting officially reprimanded.

It is, admittedly, pretty bad. Heinrich Arthur isn’t fucked up the worst of any person she’s ever seen, but he is among the most fucked up she’s ever seen someone _alive_. She snags a look at his chart; it’s about what she expected based on what she’s been able to piece together, though most of that is indirect since Tenor Bradshaw is dead and Micah Trent seems to be trying to throw Bradshaw under the bus so desperately that nothing he says is really useful. Not that it’ll do much good; the high profile of the case got the rape kit processed in a reasonable time frame for fucking once and Trent’s DNA was in the kid at least as much as Bradshaw's, though having seen the size of him Rona is willing to buy Trent’s insistence that Bradshaw is the one who broke the kid’s hip, possibly out of sheer enthusiasm.

That’s the other fun thing about looking at H. A. Lange, by the way. Most of the really fucked up people Rona’s seen have at least some aspect of random destruction about their condition–-fires and explosions and car accidents are really good at rearranging human bones and muscles, to say nothing of _skin._ Heinrich Lange doesn’t look like that; he’s got nothing in common with a plane crash survivor. You get to look at him and know somebody did all that on purpose. His eye’s swollen shut ‘cause somebody punched it; all the little slits in his arms are from little personalized scalpels Trent gave out to Coven members, apparently. His hip didn’t break because of gravity or g-forces, Tenor Bradshaw fucked it out of its socket. It’s a weird trip to go on. She can see how it would freak Blake out.

Heinrich Arthur Lange turns his head to the side and makes a small noise of distress.

Rona Cowl hasn’t panicked since she was ten years old and she doesn’t panic now, but this is not her area; she grabs the panic button on the table next to him and hits it hard, though they’ve got enough wires hooked up to him that they’ve gotta know already if he’s waking up; they should already _be_ here.

Heinrich Arthur’s unbandaged eyelid flutters, a few flashes of bloodshot green underneath, and she can tell immediately he’s looking right at her; she stops inching toward the door, reluctantly.

"Wh-sss m…..rrrother?” Heinrich Arthur Lange says around the swollen mess of his lips. He doesn’t look panicked at the moment, just very, very sleepy, and Rona sits jerkily down next to his bed in the interest of keeping it that way.

“Super not your mother,” she says, because she’s not interested in playing that game even for the sake of keeping him from freaking out. “Nurse’s coming. You’re fine.” That is possibly the biggest lie she’s ever told; it seems forgivable under the circumstances.

Heinrich Arthur Lange’s eye snaps open suddenly, and he moves his tube-and-wire-studded arms like he’s trying to sit up. “Where’s Karim?” he says, voice remarkably clear considering she’s pretty sure he lost some teeth in the whole weeks-of-torture process.

”Uh,” Rona says, feeling a drop of sweat make its way down her back. “He’s fine too. You probably shouldn’t wiggle around like that.”

“You have to–-get him away from Micah,” H.A. Lange says, not listening to her advice. He looks down at his arm, which has more than one tube sticking out of it. “Ugh,” he says, his whole face twisting in disgust, and just like that, his face goes slack and he flops back down onto the pillows.

Rona stares at him, in the midst of panicking machinery. Then she jerks to her feet. “Aren’t there any fucking _nurses in this building?”_ she yells, almost running out of the room.


	4. Painkillers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heinrich Arthur Lange wakes up. Simon Blake is only getting more horrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reasonable Question: hey Beau, where tf are your other wips right now why are you only posting this one? Answer: I have homework, and this is the only one I have pre-written :-)
> 
>  **TW for:** explicitly referenced noncon, drugs, referenced domestic abuse, Various Medical Things, Cops

They want to take Simon off the case, which is actually kind of–-fine with him at this point. The downside is that it takes some wrangling to get him in to see the kid when he wakes up, but Simon’s been working for the Bureau for long enough that when the people in charge see the look on his face, they let him through, even if they’re not sure they should.

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting. Rona said the kid was lucid, but to be honest it seems like too much to hope for. He certainly isn’t expecting him to turn away from the Agent taking his statement to look at him with surprised recognition and rasp, “Hey, you’re not dead.”

Simon stares at him, aware that the duty officer–-it’s Gus Chase, a friendly working acquaintance, he realizes with the very small part of his brain not occupied with complete astonishment–-is staring between him and the kid, startled.

“You–-remember me?” Simon says, alarmed; the best case scenario would be that the kid remembers as little as possible, though maybe not for the case.

Heinrich Arthur Lange nods, a slight movement but still kind of mind-blowing; he’s limp against the pillow but the bed is angled upward and apparently his statement is making enough sense that Gus is taking it down, though he looks kind of green, poor guy.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he says, mostly to Gus, who shakes his head.

“A break might be good for both of us,” Gus says in his soft voice, and makes kind of a hasty exit.

“He seems nice,” Heinrich Arthur Lange says to Simon. His voice is a little mushy, because of how fucked up his lips are, but he doesn’t sound like he’s had a stroke.

Simon sits down. He isn’t sure he can talk yet.

“Tenor had a gun,” Heinrich Arthur Lange says, still sounding like the only obstacle to his speaking clearly is his torn-up mouth. “I figured he’d shot you.”

Simon shakes his head. Then he remembers that Tenor Bradshaw did, actually, shoot him, and he tries to clear the weird lump in his throat, though he doesn’t quite succeed. “He missed,” he rasps.

Heinrich Lange huffs faintly, and after a second Simon realizes to his complete bewilderment that he’s laughing. “Lucky,” he says.

“Lange,” Simon says, and the kid’s exposed eye flashes.

“Art,” he corrects immediately. Simon blinks. That name hadn’t occurred to him, though he realizes he doesn’t know where a person could go with “Heinrich.”

“Art,” Simon says, then has to stop to figure out what comes next. “You seem... You feel okay?”

Art makes that little airless huffing sound again; laughter when your throat and lips are swollen, Simon guesses. “I’m fucking blazed, pretty sure,” he says, almost conspiratorially.

It startles Simon into a smile, though it feels strange on his face. “I guess you must be. You should be hurting like hell, kid.”

Art glances down at himself; his arm is still in its sling and his leg is elevated so it doesn’t shift. “Yeah,” he says, like none of that is distressing at all. “I hear you got ‘im, though, so. It's not a big deal. And-–is Tenor dead?”

Simon nods eagerly, since the kid sounds like it’s good news; it _is_ good news, though it doesn't make any of _this_ better.

Art smiles crookedly; it looks small and out of place under the cannula in his nose and Simon’s heart does a weird squeezing thing in his chest. “Nice,” Art says, and his hand twitches unbelievably into probably the best thumbs-up he can manage, though it seems to be a mistake. “Ouch,” he says, wincing and spreading his hand back out slowly. “He was a fucking creep. He got harder every time I screamed. Hope it hurt.” He says this without any change of expression. “Did he break my hip?”

Simon, who is beginning to feel like he’s having an out-of-body experience, nods helplessly.

“Bastard,” Art says calmly. “Hey, what’s your name, again?”

“Simon,” Simon says with numb lips. “Blake.”

“Cool. Did you kill him?” Art looks at him guilelessly, though the question makes all the air rush out of Simon’s lungs. He knows he must make some kind of face, though Art doesn’t seem to notice. Finally he forces himself to shake his head.

“My partner,” he croaks.

“Cool,” Art says again, almost grinning. “I don’t remember him.”

“Her,” Simon corrects without thinking. Then, still not thinking, he asks, “What do you remember, Art?”

Art looks up at the ceiling, thoughtfully. “I remember most of it, I’m pretty sure. You can ask your buddy, I think I got to the part where they kidnapped us already. He said I could see Karim once I gave my statement.” Art looks over at him, and Simon wrestles his face back under control. “He’s okay, right?” Art asks easily, he clearly already knows the answer, so he isn’t put off by the jerkiness of Simon’s nod. He relaxes back against the pillows, smiling dreamily up at the ceiling. 

“That’s so great,” Art says. “I’m so glad it worked.”

“What worked, Art?” Simon says, his voice sounding weirdly quiet over the sick pounding of his heart in his ears.

“He was in a cult, y’know,” Art says. “He didn’t know he was in a cult. He didn’t believe me when I told him, but he was starting to when they killed me–-when they _tried_ to kill me, I guess.” He frowns thoughtfully. “I wonder if Micah meant to do that. If he didn’t kill me on purpose. I guess he might have wanted to keep fucking me,” Art says, like it doesn’t mean anything. Simon puts his hand over his mouth, trying to breathe through his nose; he feels a sudden deep sympathy for Karim Mun, puking all over his hospital sheets; Micah Trent nearly tore this boy in half.

Art must see the movement of Simon’s hand out of the corner of his eye; he turns to look at him curiously. Simon drops his hand and tries to force his face back to something neutral but he can see Art’s expression morph very slowly from mild confusion to something else, like he’s thinking very hard.

“You all know who I am,” Art says slowly, like he’s putting puzzle pieces together through all the painkillers he’s on. Simon nods, since they do, and Art looks at him, his one visible eye clearing, like he’s actually seeing Simon for the first time.

“Don’t let my father in,” he says, his voice very serious. “I don’t want to see him. Don’t let him in here.”

“What?” Simon says helplessly. He can hear voices outside; Art hasn’t been awake very long, in addition to the various agencies that need his statement there have to be nurses and doctors he needs to talk to, and several of them are coming through the door, but Art is looking at him, and Simon leans in close to hear what he has to say before a dozen more important people shuffle him out of the room.

“Simon,” Art says quietly, while the doctor taps Simon on the shoulder. “He killed my brother.”

—-

Rona Cowl rarely looks impressed, but after Simon waves the file around in front of her and rants for fifteen minutes, she looks even more unimpressed than usual.

“I know how it sounds,” he tells her, deflating slightly.

“Uh huh,” Rona says. She’s slouching back in a waiting room chair with her arms crossed, the picture of unconcern. “Blake, when was the last time you left this hospital?”

“I’m not cleared to leave yet.”

“Right,” Rona says, drawing the word out in a way that makes Simon’s cheeks heat immediately. “Can I ask how you got that file, then?”

He got it from the police captain, who’s never worked with the FBI before and looked at his arm sling with something pretty near hero worship, and gave him the file on Michael Lange’s accidental death almost before he was done asking. “Doesn’t matter where I got it,” Simon says, and winces inwardly, since that’s worse than making up a lie.

Rona sighs and rubs at her temple, the closest she ever comes to admitting she’s tired. Simon remembers with a touch of guilt that she’s essentially running the case by herself since he’s out of commission.

“Simon,” Rona says, which is a bad start; using his first name is a cheap trick and Rona Cowl rarely resorts to cheap tricks. “Heinrich Lange is a republican senator.” Simon glowers, getting ready to argue any assertion that that makes him immune to scrutiny, but Rona goes on, “I’m totally ready to believe he’s an abusive prick. I’m pretty near ready to believe he’s a murderer. You know what I know for a fact he’s not, though?”

Simon glares at her, since he doesn’t have an answer.

“He’s not a cult leader. He’s not on the Most Wanted list. And he’s not my case right now.”

Simon knows she’s right, which immediately makes him angrier. “Rona, Art was–”

“Simon,” Rona says, sitting up, and really looks at him, in a way she rarely looks at anyone, no mocking in her eyes. “Heinrich Lange didn’t put his son in that hospital bed. Micah Trent did. And he’s got the money to hire lawyers bloodthirsty enough to take any distraction they can and open his cell door with it. You fucking know that.”

Simon does know it. He doesn’t drop Rona’s gaze, though. “Rona,” he says, almost desperate for her to understand. “Art knows that. But he didn’t ask me to keep Micah Trent out of his hospital room. He asked about his father.”

Rona shakes her head, though she looks a bit uncomfortable. “He knows we’ve got Trent in custody. He doesn’t need to tell us to keep him out.”

Simon sighs, runs his hand through his hair. He knows it’s more than that, but he doesn’t have any way to explain it to Rona other than to say he can feel it, and there’s no phrase Rona hates more than that one. “Fine,” he says, defeated, and tosses the file onto Rona’s lap. “I get it. One case at a time. You’re on door duty, though, if I’m not there.” He looks at her, makes her meet his eyes so she’ll know he’s deadly serious. “I don’t want Senator Lange within a mile of that hotel room. You didn’t hear him say it.”

Rona looks at him for a second, and then sighs and waves her hand. “Alright, alright, I hear you. I’ll keep an eye out.”


	5. Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon has passed the file on Art's brother's "accidental death" to his partner Rona. Rona has some doubts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for: implied/referenced child abuse; referenced noncon; Cops,; drugs/coming down off drugs/refusing pain meds; Rona in general, who I maintain is Basically Good but whose brain is still uh…. a terrifying nature documentary; also Art in general which means references to suicidal ideation and just……. generally discounting his own trauma.

Rona does, though this is information that doesn’t ever need to make its way to Simon’s ears, read the file. It’s suspicious, she guesses, but not as open and shut as Simon seems to think. It sounds like the senator and the kid were alone in the house; any court case would be about proving intent, which is a messy business she has absolutely no interest in bothering with. It might be possible–- _maybe_ -–to prove Heinrich Senior pushed his kid down the stairs; even given that there’s absolutely no way to prove he did it with the intention of killing him. You could maybe offer a history of serious physical abuse as evidence, but the actual victim of the abuse is too dead to testify about it. 

No, obviously what convinced Simon was the way the kid said it, and Rona-–gets that. Simon’s shot a few cult leaders, and threatened a few more into surrendering, but he’s never carried a bleeding teenager out of a building before. That gets in your head, gets your, like, evolutionary mom-instincts all tangled up inside you. Rona still keeps track of a couple of kids she pulled out of drug dens, when she was younger. You get over it after a while; bad things happen to a lot of people, you can’t take care of them all. Trying doesn’t do anything but make you worse at your job.

“Heinrich Lange,” a terse voice is saying to the receptionist. “I’m here for my son.”

Rona’s head snaps up from the trashy magazine she’s been reading. She’s been sitting in the front reception waiting area for twenty minutes because she’s avoiding Simon, who is stalking the halls looking annoyed, and Farah, who may or may not be in her missing son’s hospital room, because she may also be where they’re holding her missing daughter for questioning.

“I have a personal physician at a facility upstate,” the voice is saying. “I want him transferred. Start the paperwork now.”

Rona looks at Senator Heinrich Lange and knows immediately that he pushed his youngest son down the stairs of his upscale townhouse. His intent in doing so seems kind of immaterial at this point. She’s on her feet before she’s consciously processed the decision to get up.

“You can’t have him,” Rona says flatly at Heinrich Lange’s back.

Heinrich Lange turns sharply, and does the old-white-man version of the double take everyone does on first seeing her. He’s taller than her, but that never really matters.

“Who the hell are you,” Heinrich Lange says. He isn’t really what she’s expecting–she’d expected the slimy kind of abusive father, the kind who donates to charity with the same hand he uses to touch his kids. Heinrich Lange Senior looks more like the good old-fashioned kind that hits his kids in public and expects you to be too scared to say anything. Rona smiles, letting him see her teeth.

“I’m one of the agents who pulled your son out of the torture chamber,” she tells him. “Arthur Lange is part of an ongoing FBI investigation. He can’t be moved to a private facility where he’ll be outside our protection.”

Heinrich Lange looks at her, like a water buffalo would look at a lioness, not sure which one would win in a fight. The answer is always Rona, if only because she doesn’t have to ask. She watches that knowledge register in his stance, but Lange still looks belligerent–-he seems like the kind of man who pisses on his kill rather than let anyone steal it, even if it means he can’t eat it either. That’s kind of the type of man Rona has the least patience for. She feels her smile widen.

“Protection from what?” Heinrich snaps. “Your captain claims you caught the man who attacked my son.” He emphasizes the words “my son”, like he’s going to scare her with the legal claim he supposedly has, but Rona knows the legality is on her side and also that it doesn’t matter; he isn’t taking Art out of here.

“Maybe you haven’t heard the words ‘ongoing investigation,’ before,” Rona says. Heinrich’s face twitches at the insult, which wouldn’t’ve even really been an insult if she hadn’t known he’d make it one. “We caught the leader of a death-cult we’ve been investigating for a while now. We found your son in their compound. We don’t know the extent of your son’s involvement. We’re not letting him out of our sight until we’ve eliminated all possible threats to his safety.” Rona tips her head very slightly at the end there, and Heinrich’s eyes flash; nobody would assume he was included on that list unless they already knew he belonged there. Heinrich Lange isn’t a very sophisticated villain; after interviewing Micah Trent several times, it’s almost refreshing.

“You don’t have any claim on the boy,” Heinrich says, raising his voice and also calling his son “the boy;” even the receptionist is looking at him with alarm now; this is the easiest game Rona’s ever won. “I’m his goddamn _father.”_

Rona actually laughs at that one, which he recoils from like a slap in the face, as she knew he would. “This might be news to you, Senator, but your son’s nineteen years old. And I’m going to bet he wants to stay here, though I’d be happy to ask him for you. He knows there’s people in this city who want to shut his mouth any way they can.”

That one’s a little overt, but Rona’s sure enough now not to worry, and Lange’s expression of guarded alarm just makes her more sure. She’s gonna have to say all this stuff again to somebody who matters, and a U.S. Senator has enough money to make the Bureau nervous, but none of that matters now that she’s smelled blood in the water.

Heinrich turns to the receptionist, since he knows he’s lost; she takes almost a full step back from him, because he doesn’t know how badly. “Get me someone who knows what the fuck they’re talking about,” he snarls, and the receptionist doesn’t even reach for the phone, though her hand is sliding under the desk; there’s probably a panic button under there. Rona laughs again, though there’d probably be actual consequences if this little girl called security on a Senator and there’s no guarantee the hospital knows they need her like the Bureau knows they need Rona, so Rona claps a hand to Lange’s shoulder, transferring all his ire to herself immediately.

“Don’t bother,” she tells him before he can scream at her. “You’ll hear the same thing upstairs I’m telling you now. You can’t have him. Go home.”

“You bitch,” Heinrich Lange says, already turning to storm out of the hospital. “You’re fucking done working in this town.”

“The FBI is a national organization, kiddo,” she tells him, and pats him on the shoulder on his way out. He doesn’t take a swing at her, which would have been the best icing she could have asked for on this already-excellent cake, but he does make enough effort to leave with dignity that not even the onlookers who arrived too late to hear him talk can possibly have any respect for him left. Rona rocks back on her heels, delighted.

“Jesus, I need a fucking _cigarette,”_ she says, turning to grin at the receptionist, who looks back at her, alarmed. “You need anything? Buy you a coffee.”

The receptionist blinks at her, then back at Heinrich Lange’s retreating back, and then to Rona’s delight she says, “Cappuccino. Was that really his father?”

“Yep,” Rona says, waving away the change the receptionist offers her.

“That poor boy,” the receptionist says, and Rona laughs all the way to the coffee machine.

—-

Art’s head is clearing, which is always the worst part of being high.

The duty officer, Chase, finished taking his initial statement with a promise to “see what he could do about getting Karim in to see him,” which is not as strong as he remembers the initial promise being, but his memory on that is a bit fuzzy, so it’s possible he assumed it was more binding than it was.

The more awake he feels, the more every part of him hurts, some of the pain deep in his guts in ways that make him feel dizzy and sick, but he resists pressing the button that’s supposed to flood him with opiates. He needs his head clear for what comes next.

He remembers waking in the dark, every inch of him either burning or frighteningly numb, and seeing the face of the agent who carried him out; he remembers the man stripping off his sportscoat and dropping it around his shoulders, and he remembers being sure that no one would ever touch him again without wanting to hurt him, that he had been freezing and the jacket hadn’t even really helped, the cold was in his bones, blood loss probably, but the fact that this stranger had wanted to let him cover himself had made him cry when he’d thought he was done crying for good. 

He could kind of use that jacket now, actually; some of the wounds that need dressing what seems like every hour are in places Art doesn’t want strangers touching even when he knows when he’ll next be able to shit without bleeding. The nurses are largely women and therefore apologetic and gentle about it, but the doctors don’t even always ask first, and one of them tried to move Art’s legs apart when he was half asleep and Art kicked him in the face, despite the immediate disabling pain in his broken hip. He isn’t sorry, but he won’t do it again; they pumped him full of sedatives afterward and he spent the rest of the day grinding against the fog in his brain, knowing he should be panicking, which is not all that much better than actually panicking, for the record.

None of that is why he isn’t asking for more pain meds, or at least not all of why. He needs his head clear because he’s heard from one of the nurses, who seems like she thought she was comforting him, that the whole Coven is going on trial, on charges starting at attempted murder and building from there, and that’s not fucking acceptable. He’s not that invested in the girls, though he’ll put in a good word for them if he gets the chance; he doesn’t feel too bad about that, given that he essentially didn’t meet them until they were cutting him open. But Karim isn’t going from nine years in a cult straight to a prison, thank you very much. He’ll bust him out himself if he has to, but they aren’t actually sure he’s ever going to walk again, so it’ll be more expedient to keep him from getting locked up in the first place.

The agent who found him, Simon, seems cut up and unsettled by his condition, at least as far as Art remembers–he’d been pretty out of it when he saw him again. Art’s sorry about that, and sorry he apparently got shoulder-shot during the dramatic rescue, too, presumably because his arms were too full of what was left of Art to draw his gun; but he isn’t too sorry to exploit that a little, if he can. He’s ready to spin the story, leave out Karim’s initial promise to kill him, since he knows what it would sound like to someone who didn’t know him before, and leave in all the parts where Karim saved his life over and over and is the reason he isn’t taking the current opportunity to overdose on opiates like he could so easily do right now.

It is fucking ironic, obviously, how close he came to dying just about the second he didn’t want to anymore.

The door to his room opens, and he looks up, hoping it’s Simon Blake and not any doctors holding needles, and then he stares, because it isn’t either of those, it’s the creepiest-looking woman he’s ever seen. She’s probably mid-thirties, and her hair is a thin side-shaved mess of curls so pale as to be almost translucent, showing the pale pink of her scalp underneath. She’s wearing dark glasses even indoors— though he can’t fault her for that; the fluorescents are murder on his eyes too— and a pantsuit, though she seems to be wearing combat boots underneath.

The woman leans in the doorway and looks at him over her glasses. Her eyes are a fairly unsettling shade of violet. “Morning, starshine,” she says dryly. “You lucid, or just awake?”

Art closes his eyes to settle into the pain, and then sits up a little. It’s bad, his hip and ass both screaming in different voices, but it’s doable. “I’m lucid. Are you with the FBI?”

The woman eyes him, maybe with curiosity. “Rona Cowl,” she says with a nod. “Blake’s my partner.” When she speaks, Art feels with a shiver down his spine that there’s something off about her teeth, but he shoves the feeling away.

“You helped carry me out, then,” he says. He folds the hand he can move in his lap and looks at her steadily. “Thank you.”

Rona Cowl narrows her eyes at him, though he can’t think of anything he can have done wrong. He forces himself to stay still and not visibly go on the defensive.

“You _are_ lucid,” she says slowly, moving to sit in one of the chairs beside the bed. Rona Cowl looks at him, and then she reaches forward without changing expression and presses two fingers against his dislocated shoulder.

Pain shoots up Art’s arm, and a short wail tears out of his throat before he can smother it.

“Yeah, I thought so. I’m calling the nurse to get you more painkillers.” She starts to get up.

 _“Don’t,”_ Art says, and she stops, surprised. He takes a moment to catch his breath, letting the pain settle back into a dull ache. When he’s sure he’ll be able to see, he lifts his head and glares at her.

“I don’t need them. I need to talk to Agent Blake.”

Rona Cowl raises an eyebrow, and waits for him to go on. Art considers her. He doesn’t feel like he has a good enough handle on who this woman is to know what tack to use— but if she tells the nurses to dose him, they will, and he deeply does not want that. He’s got to try something.

“I want to tell someone what really happened. I want to make sure the FBI understands. So they don’t hurt people who have already been hurt enough.”

Rona Cowl looks at him for a long time, her violet eyes slightly narrowed. “You mean Karim Mun,” she says finally, which could be good or very bad. He feels his free hand clench, and forces it to relax, nods once, keeping his face blank. 

“Karim never hurt me. He saved my life. I don’t want him to go to court until I’ve made that clear.” He makes sure his voice is calm and unmodulated; he knows emotion will make him easier to dismiss.

“I hear you’ve been asking to see him,” Rona Cowl says, and she raises an eyebrow again, so it might be a trap, but Art feels his heart clench in his chest. 

“Yes,” he says, and it comes out husky and desperate, so he takes a breath to let his pulse slow again. “Yes,” he says again, more calmly. “He was held by Micah far longer than I was. I want to know for sure that he’s alright.”

Rona squints at him. She must be albino, he thinks, and he’s read that albinism causes vision problems. It sure feels like she can see him, though. Then her face clears, though she still has that dangerous tilt to her brows. 

“I’ll see what I can do,” she says mildly, and clicks out of the room.

—-

It’s— all very complicated. And a distraction from what Rona really meant to do, which is ask him about his father. Though she’s certainly ignoring her own advice now, and getting distracted from the actual case.

Broadly, Art Lange doesn’t have much to worry about. It’s likely Karim Mun will have a one-on-one meeting with a judge, not a trial, and given he was taken at fifteen and seems to be one of the few cult members who didn’t actually kill anyone on his own, he’s likely to get off without much more than mandatory counselling, which christ knows he’d need anyway. 

But this thing with Art Lange’s father changes things, makes everything worse and more suspicious. Rona knows, to some extent, that beating Heinrich Lange Senior is just a welcome distraction from Micah Trent, who has a million more lives tangled up with his, not to mention better lawyers and a squirrely-er brain. It probably doesn’t actually change anything, but knowing Art Lange isn’t just a normal kid who got kidnapped by a cult does make her more suspicious of everyone else involved. It’s possible Art just has the worst luck of any rich kid on the planet, but it’s also possible someone saw vulnerability and pounced on it, and she’s not sure that person would have been Micah.

Which means it’s time to see whether Karim Mun is cleared to walk around or not.


End file.
